


Lungers

by anniesburg



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Arthur Morgan Lives, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Historical Inaccuracy, Major Illness, Medical Procedures, Mild Blood, Mountain? What mountain?, Opposites Attract, Terminal Illnesses, Tuberculosis Sanatorium AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-06 19:22:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17945651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anniesburg/pseuds/anniesburg
Summary: The dry heat of Arizona calls to the dying. Sanatoriums are built almost as fast as the graves are dug. Arthur's sure nothing will come of treatment, but it can't be any worse than where he's been.





	Lungers

**Author's Note:**

> this is absolutely me putting my hands over my ears and scREAMING UNTIL THE PAIN STOPS!!!!! but yeah i've been working on this for a while and i'm excited to share. in No Way is it historically accurate so please bear that in mind. hope you like it???

Arthur figures he should’ve stayed out east, everyone comes here to die. 

Tucson’s a bust, it’s just tents as far as the eye can see. White canvas against brown dirt, it looks like the site of a future graveyard with its neat rows. The people bustle like ants, coughs that wound like his pushing against their chests. 

There’s heat and blood and nothing else, but he notices the difference that dry air makes. He’s not hacking up as much red, but enough that most of the shanty-towns and charge-free sanatoriums want nothing to do with him. 

Treatable cases, Arthur realizes, are what the discerning look for. Even a place like this, built for death and ready to receive his corpse doesn’t want someone like him. But there’s so many, more people looking pale and rake-thin than he could’ve dreamed of. And the doctors that turn them —and him, he admits with no short of bitterness— away have no idea how to help the less-advanced, either.

He doesn’t sleep much any more. It used to be that just the coughing kept him up, now Arthur tells himself that he’s waiting for the bastard riding on a pale, white horse. If he’s going to die by moonlight, he wants to see it coming. 

There’s nothing left to do but move north, out of Tuscon to Phoenix. They build sanatoriums almost as fast as they dig graves, a man with deep-set eyes and a skull-grin told Arthur so with a reedy chuckle. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. 

It’s not a pleasant thought. Moving around when he’s weak as he is, coughing up more blood than if he’d been shot sounds like hell’s come early. Arthur’s licked by fire with every sunrise. But he can’t bring himself to stop moving, to face himself east when his only hope lies west.

Hosea always had a habit of ending up right, eventually. 

His new horse isn’t quite like Prasutagus, nor was he like Boadicea. But, Arthur considers as he loads this animal down with the amenities of life, that he might have the makings of an Archimedes. He doesn’t move fast but he doesn’t fall down, even as supplies begin to dwindle. 

Arthur’s been told of a place, a hospital built with charitable inclination. That means late-stage cases and no board fees he can’t afford. The sun melts the dark sky and he’s riding perpendicular to it by what must be five-thirty in the morning. 

Exhaustion clings to him like a second skin, a surviving remnant of his persistence. He used to care, it’s preserved now by the fact that he wants to live. Arthur knows he can’t have everything, he knows John and Abigail and Jack deserve what he’ll never get. But he’s not dead yet. He has no intention of coming out here to die. Not right away. 

Phoenix from Tuscon is a hard but uninterrupted ride. The flat land leaves him feeling on edge, unprotected without the safety of the trees. Archimedes’ll need a little extra love when they get to where they’re going, what grows here is thorny and tough under his hooves. 

But the sky above is robin’s egg-blue, looking like a stunning ocean out of a painting. Arthur tilts his head sunward every so often, his eyes drifting over the cloudless expanse. It’s beautiful out here. 

Mountains watch him from places far-off and inhospitable. Even thinking about climbing one’s like asking for a coughing fit. But the dry heat out here is easier on his corroded lungs, even as the dust works against his fragile respiratory system. 

His chest still aches come evening, another rough day come and gone. Camping out in the desert feels like a death sentence, it leaves him exposed in the open on all sides. But the trek’s almost over and no matter what disappointment lies ahead, the journey can’t beat the destination. 

He dreams of a bed for the first time in years, cradling his rifle to his chest. Arthur doesn’t want to think about how little sleep he end up getting when the daylight burns his eyelids and he has to start all over again. 

But the mid-afternoon is partially interrupted by the sight of civilization. 

It’s to his left. The city’s not the size of Saint Denis, can’t quite rival it but it’s surely habited. Arthur eyes small homesteads that grow tighter and tighter together, finally caving in to sprawling urbanization near the centre. It looks like a hive, tall and wide and inescapable. 

He rides on, doesn’t impose himself on the city in any small way. What he wants isn’t there. 

The sanatorium’s north and away from the city. The healthy are effectively separated from those still able to stand without shaking, chills persist even in this oppressive heat. Arthur understands the isolation, enough of this state is wracked by bloody coughing fits. 

He can see the Superstition Mountains rising oppressively ahead, more jagged and uneven than those similarly distant ones out on the road. But he must live in closer quarters to these strange rocks, no matter how much the thought unsettles him. Lacking the high ground disturbs him almost as much as the open land, but not quite. 

Discomfort erupts in his chest with every stride of his horse. The jostling, he’s sure, is murder but something in him urges his mount onward. A lot of folks had to die to get Arthur where he is today, so close to the mountains that look like sunbaked and broken teeth. There’s no sense in digging his grave now. He’s fulfilled his purpose, he sought out redemption and it left the window open for him. This continuation of life is a sign of nothing but his own stubbornness, a trait he’s decided to embrace. 

For better or worse, Arthur’s breathing. 

After a few more hours of hard riding, he sees the dust cloud kicked up by carriages. The front of the building looking smart even though it’s smeared with red dirt. The place is not pristine in the slightest but it carries a homey charm, the facade looks like a large but welcoming manor house. 

Arthur can see it burning from past experience, he’s tried to put Lemoyne out of his head but he’s yet to manage it. 

People crowd outside, some dressed sharply and the bulk of them not as much. Everyone, no matter their obvious social standing is covered in what the desert has to offer. The destination that seemed so far-off once is in front of him sooner than Arthur knows how to respond to. 

There’s all sorts hanging around, stepping out of carriages and tying off horses. A man in spectacles with hair parted down the middle holds a board clip. He approaches the people arriving by carriage, first. Arthur dismounts with more pain in his chest than he lets on. He ties his horse by the reigns to the post where others do the same and moves closer to he who looks like he’s in charge.

Arthur soon notices that the doctor’s not alone. A pretty, smiling nurse stands just to the side and turns to look at the cowboy. She leaves her spot, starting towards him.

“S’cuse me, this here, s’this—” Arthur drawls with a heavy, deep voice before cutting himself off. He gestures apologetically with one hand as he turns his mouth into the crook of his other arm to cough.

“Superstition Sanatorium,” the woman cheerily tells him when he’s done hacking up what’s left of his lungs. She ignores his raised arm and comes closer to him. “you made it.” The relief in her tone makes it sound like she knows him personally, it sets Arthur on edge. But her young face holds genuine relief.

“Didn’t think I was expected,” Arthur says, a joke clearly in his tone. The nurse smiles wider and raises her pen. 

“We get plenty of new faces every day, Mister—” she pauses, tilting her head expectantly. 

“Oh, Morgan,” he decides not to lie on that front. If he’s not dead by the time Pinkerton’s find him, he figures he’ll want to be. “Arthur Morgan.” The nurse scribbles it down. 

“Right, Mister Morgan, your name’s right here,” she looks so happy, he can hardly stand it. “we’ve been waiting for you to turn up.” It’s a joke returned, but it works. Arthur’s mouth’s tugged into a small smile almost involuntarily. “I’ll hand this over to you so you can fill out the rest of the paperwork. Sign-in’s a bit of a breeze at the moment since some people—”

She cuts herself off rather abruptly but Arthur can imagine what she’d have gone on to say. Some people need treatment starting yesterday, no time to lallygag with pens in hand. Instead of finding some better way of communicating an unseemly reality, she trusts him to understand and pushes her own board clip towards him. Arthur takes up the pencil and stares at the information.

He makes up the home address, picks somewhere quiet near the Grizzlies and doesn’t specify a settlement. But near-everything else he knows to answer as accurately as his safety can afford, no use in seeking treatment if the doctors know nothing but lies. 

“You ain’t lookin’ for some sort of bank statement or nothin’?” Arthur tries before he’s even a quarter of the way through writing the information. The nurse shakes her head. 

“We get our funding from the state and a few private investors,” she says. “Our aim here’s to increase quality of life, there shouldn’t be a charge for that.”

“Wish more things ran that way,” Arthur feels compelled to keep his spirits up around this young woman. He wants to know what she’s doing out here. 

“Maybe it’ll catch on.” She says with a lilt in her voice, an un-laugh. But clearly he’s amused her.

She waits patiently as he writes his age, height and an approximation of his weight. He doesn’t think too hard about how that number’s fluctuated in a negative sense as of late. 

“What’s this ‘bout a referral?” He asks, looking up at her. Her face is round, soft. She takes another step closer to him and peers over the top of the board clip. 

“You put the name of the doctor who referred you here.” She explains but that isn’t what he meant. 

“Oh, well—” Arthur puts his hand, pencil and all on the back of his neck. The gesture’s bashful but the young nurse doesn’t seem fazed. “I’s told about this place from a fella out in Tucson, weren’t no doctor.” 

“Well, do you know who gave you your diagnosis? That’d do instead, I should think. We just need to know who you’ve been treated by before.” She assures him.

Arthur doesn’t know if he remembers who. His face contorts for just a moment, not in thought but in disappointment. If he’s to be turned away he doesn’t want it to be on account of his stupidity.

But the nurse, no longer grinning but instead holding a fond look in her brown eyes puts a hand on his forearm. Arthur looks up at her. It’s a strange sensation, being touched. The rough, tanned skin on his arm feels like it gone numb beneath her fleshy palm. 

“Didn’t catch his name. Only saw him once in Saint Denis,” Arthur turns his head and tries to keep the coughing to a minimum with her this close. “and he said there weren’t much he could do for me.” 

The nurse’s mouth turns to a thin line, annoyance that clearly lies with Doctor-Saint-Denis. She gives his forearm a gentle squeeze that sends feeling rocketing back to where she touches. But before Arthur can really appreciate the sensation, her hand drops. 

“Just write the city and I’ll send a telegram,” her smile returns, then. “I’ll find out. Let’s get you inside, it’s boiling out here.” 

He sets the pencil on the metal ridge of the board and hands it back to the nurse. She gives it a glance, it gets a raised eyebrow for reasons Arthur is not quite sure of. 

“I’ll enter your information into our records and get you to sign the boarding agreement.” She finally says, giving him one more smile. When she turns, he understands that the intent’s for him to follow. 

“What’s your name?” He offers up, young nurse doesn’t do her justice in his mind. She looks over her shoulder at him, her eyes flash like she was waiting for him to ask. 

“June Morris. You may call me Nurse June.” She turns back towards the sanatorium, breezing off towards the dirty-white stairs. Arthur heaves a shaky breath, stifling another coughing fit before trailing after her. 

The rest of the sign-in process is an unpleasant haze. While the outside of the hospital has been subjected to the elements, Arthur can’t help but feel as if he sullies the interior. Red dust and dried mud falls in clumps off his boots as he trudges from office to private screening room. June, with her red hair coiled under a cap as white as a dove’s wing makes herself scarce after he signs the board agreement. 

She promises there will be plenty more for her to get him to sign once he’s had his check-up. Once they find out what he’s ‘on’. 

It all moves very fast. A different doctor than the one Arthur saw outside seems very interested in taking X-rays as soon as he can. The cowboy fidgets under bright lights, he listens dully to the otherwise friendly but twitchy man decide which treatment to begin with. 

“You see, Mister Morgan,” the doctor pipes. His voice is like a whistle, high but not unpleasant. “everyone is ‘on’ something at our hospital. It’s just a question of whether you should begin on ‘absolute’.”

“What’s that mean?” Arthur finds himself asking. He likes this man, he decides. Maybe not as much as Nurse June, but he’s harmless and chipper enough.

“Absolute is bed rest with no rising. You seem to be—” the doctor looks him up and down, Arthur half-lies in the leather chair not unlike a dead fish. “in something of a bad way.” 

“Haven’t had much time to rest, doc.” He admits with a slight downward glance. This place doesn’t make him feel any more hopeful, but he supposes rest with no rising for the first time in his life could be agreeable.

“I heard you rode in here on horseback,” the doctor tells him, putting the ends of his stethoscope into his ears. Arthur notes with a small amount of pride that the man sounds impressed. “but I think your riding days might be over.”

“Could be for the best—” it’s humiliating to him, when he has to rush his sentences so his coughing doesn’t cut him off. But the thought of staying stationary, sleeping in the space between four walls— it doesn’t scare him half as much as he thought it might. 

His fears are more advanced, now, he supposed. Arthur’s reached out and touched his encroaching death, he isn’t ready for that kind of emptiness yet. Even lying still is preferable. He has enough fight left in him not to give up and run himself into the ground. 

“I think it will,” the doctor agrees. When Arthur turns, the man’s closer to him and holding out a white handkerchief. He takes it and wipes his mouth, it comes away red. “we have had moderate success with plenty of fresh air and you’ll not soon run out of things to read. I think absolute is the best way to start.”

“S’been a while since I had time to read much,” Arthur says. The doctor nods with a hopeful enthusiasm. 

“Yes, well, I’ll escort you back to your room and leave you to acquaint yourself.” Arthur’s resigned himself to the fact that this will likely be his final resting place no matter how successful treatment is, but at least Doc’s not laying it on too thick. 

He stands up when the man nods, walking after someone for the second time that day. He’s been promised mountains of paperwork to keep his hands idle once he’s settled into bed. Arthur can’t wait. 

“The nurses will check in with you hourly,” the doctor says over his shoulder, Arthur grunts in an affirming way. 

They pass by the front desk, a big slab of oak on a porcelain base. June stands behind it, her tired expression brightens when Arthur enters her field of view. She offers up a little wave and he returns a nod. 

Nothing will come of this in the long run, but it can’t hurt much worse than where he’s been.


End file.
